When an NRA endorsement hurts, not helps

Public Policy Polling’s latest national survey included an interesting question about the nation’s leading lobbying organization on guns: “Much has been made in recent weeks about the NRA’s political strength, but PPP’s newest national poll finds more voters consider their endorsement to be a negative than a positive. 39% say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had the NRA’s support to just 26% who say they’d be more likely to.”

I put together a nice little pie chart to help drive the point home.

Among self-identified independent voters, the results were roughly the same: PPP found that “41% consider an NRA endorsement to be a turn off to 27% who say it’s a plus.”

Annie-Rose Strasser added, “This information serves to bust the myth that the NRA is an all-powerful lobbying group that dictates political outcomes. While the organization may enjoy wide support among those politicians whose campaigns it bankrolls, soon there may be few of such politicians left; in 2012, only .81 percent of the group’s spending went to politicians who won. And if the NRA is having a negative influence on swing voters as well, then it really has no sway on political elections overall.”

In related news, former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), the head of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership, said women voters, in particular, will continue to keep their distance from the GOP so long as the party ”is seen as in the pocket of the NRA and not willing to engage in the conversation.”